Laila Lavinia
Laila Lavinia is a Partners fan-character made by Milkie (AKA MilkJunkie) Laila Lavinia is a 16-year-old giraffe, described as having incredibly long, wavy hair that is naturally two-toned between chocolate brown and a golden yellow, as well as royal blue eyes. She is, as her species suggests, incredibly tall and fit. She appears in a side-story written by Milkie called "Harbington Heroes." Background Laila's family has a deeply-rooted history in the old Americas of pre-splice history, and a lineage that succeeded well into post-splice life. Generation upon generation past were well-to-do livestock and cattle ranchers. In modern times, many livestock products like beef or milk have been replaced by genetically engineered plants, providing healthy alternatives to such products. Because of this, her family conformed, leaving behind their traditional life and embracing the more science-oriented agriculture of dome living. Laila is far too young to remember a time where her great, great, great, great, great grandfather competed in Rodeos, but several well-preserved scrap books account her family's history well. Laila worked from childhood, helping out on her parents' Agricultural Facility, Sweet Acres, as soon as she was old enough to handle even lugging water around. With her parents, Gunther Lavinia and Eden Lavinia, and her younger sister Valyrie Lavinia, Laila has played her part in providing Harbington with quality food products. As a child, Laila was a far cry from what she would become in her adolescence. With her life's path seeming so set, she strove to buck things wherever she could. It drove her to act out, misbehave, and upset expectations. When she was younger, she loved to tease and bother fellow students on the playground. To her, it was one big game where she got a laugh from making her peers upset. They'd get angry and yell at her, but she was so much bigger than the other kids that they were too intimidated by her to retaliate. It never helped that her parents refused to see her as anything other than an angel, and so she was spoiled and allowed to proceed in any way she saw fit. This got her tangled in with the wrong crowd, and she found herself with like-minded individuals who had a penchant for teasing and purposely being disliked. Laila was too ignorant of her own situation to know when she or her friends were going too far. Whenever they said or did inappropriate things, Laila always found it to be more entertaining than not. It wasn't until she was fourteen and the leader of her pack at that time, Jimmy Ret, came to dislike Daxton Kemberge. Laila was ordered to make Daxton "pay" for often standing up for the bully's marks by pranking him. Laila, thinking Daxton was simply a stiff, unlikable kid did just as she was told. Daxton became the victim of many pranks at Laila's hands. She would displace or steal his books and school supplies, trip him up in the hallway, and even once took his clothes from him when he was changing after gym class. But after a while the pranks became less effective. Daxton stopped being bothered when his homework was obviously stolen so he couldn't hand it in - and the last time Laila took his clothes, he simply walked home in nothing but an understicker in direct defiance against whomever thought it would be funny. This caused the need to up the ante, and so Laila was told to take Daxton's S.T.O.P and hide it from him. But Laila's time spent 'pranking' Daxton was weighed equally in time spent watching him and his pack react to it in stride. She developed a sort of connection with her victim, and began to understand him differently. When she finally did take his sight away from him and watched as he was helpless to wander blindly while her pack leader watched on in malicious glee, Laila came to a startling revelation: she was a bully and a bad person. Laila drew the line. She returned Daxton's S.T.O.P under the pretense that she had found it somewhere, and in doing so she brought the ire of her pack leader upon her. Her pack demanded she repent for her sudden change of heart, but after realizing that they would stoop so low as to steal someone's only means of seeing the world away, she refused out-right. Unanimously, Laila was expelled from her pack, and for many days was forced to be alone while also becoming a target to her old pack-mates who joyed in making life miserable for her. Like with Daxton, the cruel acts increased in severity when Laila tried to act like her prior victim and smile her way through it. In the ultimate twist of fate, it was Daxton who came to her aid. When things started to look their bleakest, and the 'pranks' being pulled on her started to include things like sabotaging her family's crops, it was the corgi boy and his pack-mates Kenny Baxter and Quincey Abram who came and stood up against them on her behalf. They succeeded, but it was made clear then that Laila's old pack-mates despised her and would never welcome her back - that was when Kenny simply stated that Laila was part of their pack now instead, and that her old friends could "shove it." Laila had never been more surprised. She served her new pack tirelessly in a true sense of repent for her previous actions, silently regretting all she'd done and never telling them about any of it. Instead, she focused all her attention into approaching things with her newfound clarity. She found new joy in working to make others happy instead of making them irate, and her warm glow was unlocked by her new friends. Even though she worked so hard to be nice, she was so good at it that she became something of a "pack mother" to the others. Duplex & Eos When Quincey encountered Duplex, and was threatened with her life lest she bring the Inkling to meet Echelon, Laila played a large part in orchestrating Quincey's escape from detainment and leaving the dome by acting as the getaway driver. Upon beginning the journey on-foot from Harbington to Locksmouth, Laila kept her mind focused on easing the high tensions of the group and keeping everyone focused and motivated. Her main role in the group was availing herself to be used as emotional support. She played an integral part in numerous escapes from danger during their travels, but was ultimately captured by Eos alongside Daxton and Casey Ducibus. She attempted to assist Daxton in finding a means of escape, only to be rescued by Jacent Danger and brought to meet Natalie Grayswift. It was then that Eos occupied Harbington, blocking Laila and her pack's ability to return home. Forced to remain in Locksmouth, Laila kept busy responding to Kenny's running away, and Cedric's subsequent attempts to force them to leave. When Eos successfully kidnapped Quincey and Natalie, Laila joined in the rescue attempt in spite of being told to stay back. Taking Daxton and Kenny in an Eos truck, she barreled her way through the front doors of Caduceus Manor where her friends were being held captive. Her efforts helped defeat the Inkling Haze. Once Quincey and Natalie were rescued and Eos was defeated, Laila returned home with her pack. Epheral's Invasion Shortly after returning to Harbington, the Inkling Core known as Epheral invaded, causing massive damage and unleashing chaos upon the dome. Laila became a core participant in the evacuation attempts of the citizens, using her truck to round up the workers on her farm and take them to the safe-house of the Harbington Mall. She later joined Daxton in collecting stranded survivors from Harbington High, including Jimmy Ret, Lincoln Mudd, Abigail Condoleezza, and Sophia and Vernon Ohannes. While there, she encountered Sylph who was being hosted by a silver fox, accidentally injuring the Inkling's host. Sylph took Laila in recompense, forcing her to take the fox to safety before returning to escape with Daxton. With Sylph's newfound abilities, Laila joined in the effort to fight back in earnest, protecting the Harbington citizens when the decision came to flee to Locksmouth to be under the protection of Natalie Grayswift and the other Inkling heroes. Upon arriving, she lent her abilities to securing Locksmouth when Epheral followed them there. Sylph and Laila were forced to address their uncertainties and strong desire to flee the situation and wash their hands of it. With overwhelming support by the employees of Happy Acres, her family, and her former pack, Laila later joined in the final confrontation against Epheral when the Inkling Core transformed into an "Achroma" and threw down the gauntlet for a final confrontation. Laila sustained minor injuries in the fight, and Sylph nearly destroyed, but they pulled out victory in the end. After a short recuperation, she returned with her pack to Harbington. Homefront When she returned home from defeating Epheral, the reconstruction of Harbington was top priority. To this end, Sweet Acres and the other Agricultural Facilities came together to create a Farmer's Collective of Harbington. With their renewed focus, the food stocks and agriculture of Harbington bounced back quickly. With all the farm workers coming under a single umbrella, Laila and her father Gunther agreed to begin training and teaching Laila the in's and outs of administrative duties so that she could take on a sect of her own, overseeing the production and operations of her own facility. On top of these new responsibilities, Laila's sister Valyrie created a brand presence using Laila and Sylph as the superhero-like icon to put on their products. Named "Miss Happy Acres," Laila took on a new way of dress, leaning hard into the hat-tipping, chaps-wearing cowgirl persona. Illustrated characters of her likeness were put on products shipped by Sweet Acres, cartoon images of Laila appearing in grocery stores and supermarkets in Harbington and beyond. The public began to see her as a celebrity, and the face of what Harbington prides itself in: growing good food, and lots of it. Coupled with Sylph's abilities for atmospheric manipulation and flight, and Laila's beautiful appearance, her fans were plenty. When Quincey received the call from Jacent asking them for help when Automa lead by Mixer invaded Locksmouth, Laila set aside her duties and joined her pack in answering the call. She arrived to near-immediate attack by Mixer's forces, and only narrowly escaped. She joined Lorna Grayswift and Archimedes' resistance efforts to fight back and protect the Locksmouth citizens from harm. Personality Laila is on the surface a caring girl, outspoken and brash, her forward nature only helped by being so much taller than her peers (she stands an impressive six feet and seven inches tall). She projects herself as a sort of matron to others, ready and willing to welcome them into an embrace and give them the comfort they need in a cheery, southern-tinged tone. What she hides is knowing full well how to be bad, and a love of mischief that gives her a guilty thrill at the expense of others. Laila actively avoids this aspect of herself, the good feeling of being bad, out of guilt for her past transgressions during her childhood. Still, she sometimes acts or speaks without the consideration or others, or at times purposely riles them up for her own entertainment while passing it off as simply being playful. Despite most teenagers doing their best to find their path, Laila is very set in her ways. She knows that when she grows up she is going to run her family Agricultural Facility, Sweet Acres Farm, and she's perfectly fine with that. She has voiced being tremendously proud of her family's farming lineage and Southern roots. She treats school as something of an after-thought because of this. Laila's libido is something that can indicate her mood. While she works hard to not get angry or upset, her current stress levels are indicated often by how badly she wants to get intimate with others. She sees it as a form of stress relief, where OC can wash away the problems of the world - if even for just several bouts of seconds-long releases and a good half-hour of warm afterglow. This stress-to-lust response has gotten her in trouble at times, but makes her very popular among certain students. She doesn't hate or regret this way of acting, and in fact prunes her appearance with the devilish awareness of her sexuality and ability to arouse those around her. She fails to consider this a sexual addiction, even though it is exactly that. Abilities Laila has a variety of talents, though her prominent skill set comes from tending her family's farm. She is well-practiced in the physical work involved in harvesting gen-gineered foods and plants including planting, fertilizing and monitoring. She is also learned in machine operations involved in the harvesting process. Her father taught her how to effectively lasso, hogtie and use bolas skills, she claims, that have run through her family for centuries despite most livestock products being replaced with genetically altered plant equivalents. With her Inkling, Sylph, she is able to control localized air pressure. She can create concussive blasts by moving air quickly, create small dervishes, and even utilize it to grant her the ability to fly at high speeds. When shaded, these powers are increased considerably to the point where she can conjure massively destructive tornadoes, or pack considerably more pressure into even the smallest gusts. She can even go so far as to depressurize a small area, and then re-pressurize it rapidly - the force of which is said to be comparable to an atomic bomb. Trivia *Back before Skyships of Conquest declined into a meet and greet for sexcapades, Laila played as part of the Naval Elite. Her avatar was Admiral d'Onse, and she was for one week's time ranked first on the PVP leaderboards in her faction. *Laila's more unsavoury past exhibits itself still in times where she seems caught up in her own thoughts and feelings, and holds little regard for others'. It also exhibits itself in the joy she experiences when playing roles in games that would traditionally be seen as 'villainous.' *She owns and drives a Vigo brand truck. The model was named "Vigo" as a clever short-form to "vigorous," and is crafted as a civilian likeness to construction industry haulers. * Laila snores and is prone to drooling while she sleeps, as referenced several times throughout Harbington Heroes. * Laila's family farm, Sweet Acres, has three anti-gravity "Hanging Garden facilities" and 200 acres of crops on the ground. Category:Characters Category:Fan-Characters Category:Inked